Contact, Contribution, and Bio
I create unique, high-quality writing and music for a select audience, not the mass market. This means your contributions provide important support. Because my output is unpredictable, I prefer not to offer paid subscriptions to a monthly newsletter, as many other writers do. Instead I ask that you make an occasional donation you feel reflects the value of my work. You can do this at the link below. All subscriptions are free, and provide access to certain corners of the site, as well as email announcements of new releases.
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An Autobiographical Note
I don’t like to write about myself, but in the absence of accurate information, too many people begin to hallucinate. I’ll present a few ground facts.
I was born to a family of accountants, but was not sensible enough for accounting. I went to school at length, where I studied philosophy and classical music. I eventually dropped out to pursue them more seriously.
During that time I traveled the globe and had the usual variety of affairs. I also played the piano and guitar and sang but was never much good at any of them. In fact, my voice became useless for singing due to a minor health issue affecting my vocal cords, and I never met the girl singer I needed. My real talent was for writing and composing. So I eventually dedicated myself to these exclusively.
In recent years I’ve lived a monkish existence in the countryside devoted to my artistic and philosophical work. I’ve written symphonies, novels, treatises, songs, and essays.
I prefer to write fiction in the first person, and present it likewise. My success at this has led some readers to believe odd things about the author. As I said to begin, I don’t like to write about myself. I also have a distaste for the uncivilized predominance of ad hominem thinking today. Confusing the perspective is my way of encouraging people to be better. None of my fictional perspectives are my own, and they are usually very far from it.
A few of my essays address sexual topics. I’ve written about these topics because they are important to human life, and others who are more concerned with seeming serious than being it have neglected to give them the quality of attention they deserve.
Optimalism and Winter Post are the two works I am most proud of. I wrote most of Winter Post in empty apartments sitting on a cushion on the floor, and I wrote Optimalism in a stuffy room in a ghetto next-door to a drug dealer who forced reggae on me. My works are creations of the mind. They are not bound to the material circumstances surrounding their birth.
Producing them has been rewarding. Of course, these rewards have been counteracted by the stress of poverty and the persistently negative reaction from the public. The abuse directed at me during years of promotion in the digital public square eventually led me to withdraw with a deeply negative view of modern society and the character of people today.
Paperback novels agree that the most characterful character traits are whether one prefers coffee, tea, or martinis, and if so, with how much milk and sugar. In my view coffee ice cream is the ideal presentation, and all others are pretenders. I do not drink now and never have in the past either. Due to some unidentified genetic flaw, my body is highly sensitive to disturbance. At times the consequences have sapped my ability and desire to compose and write for months. I maintain a strict regimen to minimize trouble. In other respects I am very fit. Mountain hiking is my main pastime. I am too busy for much else. I never play or watch games unless there is some social motivation.
Ideally a biography should feature a bizarre detail to distract journalists. For instance, that you own and drive a tank. Then all press is about the tank, and they don’t bother with the usual misrepresentations. I am still trying to perfect this detail, so it’s fortunate the press has not taken interest. “Subsists entirely on cocoa and olive oil” is the best that comes to mind, but only a placeholder for some more attention-getting fabrication to be added in the future. In the meantime those interested can cite my “midnight composing binges fueled by a strange mixture called ‘chocolate absinthe.’”
In our era of steady decline into corruption and vice where even low expectations are disappointed, I view black humor as the only salvation. The tibouchina is my national tree, though I have not yet founded the nation in question.
alongside the
lasiandra
I shall drown in this
sea of grass
A pretty girl, a stereo, a small cabin on a sunny beach, and freedom from drudgery are known to ancient Chinese wisdom as the four necessaries. But it’s not easy to assemble all of them simultaneously. Nor can the four evils of tattoos, attached garages, Chicago, and reggae all be readily avoided. While I have many regrets, the foremost in my mind as I type these words is that I’ve neglected music for too long while finishing my philosophical projects. I rarely know when done is done. The other regrets I won’t detail here. This autobiography is written to avoid boring people, and if it’s successful they’ve already stopped reading. The rest of you now know everything about me.
We can each only live one life at a time. Even beyond the sovereignty of chance, that entails opportunity costs. Creating art is about failing at other things. Not necessarily for everyone in principle, but for me in practice. In this light I expect my best work is the work I have yet to do. For as the saying says, one sin leads to another: and so it is with symphonies too.
J. Sanilac